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By: Paz Fernández Cueto
The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail publishes today, in Ottawa, the culmination of the first part of a great scientific project, the first catalog that points out the most common genetic differences that exist in the four ethnic groups that inhabit the planet.
The so called Haplotype Map revealed yesterday in Utah, marks a historic step towards a new era of genetic patient-made treatments.
In contrast, the proposal to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide still being discussed in Ottawa’s Parliament (Bill C-407) – as in many other countries like Mexico- seemingly initiated by the same author, makes us think in population strategies linked to economic character reasonings.
The exponential increase in adults over 60, in contrast with the drastic decrease in new births, gives as a result a disproportionate economic burden over a minority economically productive sector. This demographic phenomena is known as the inversion of the population pyramid. While science makes rapid progress towards preservation of life by means of the discovery of the genetic map, on the other hand, there are enormous efforts trying to extinguish it, depending on issues such as if it results more or less uncomfortable, more or less productive, more or less convenient for particular interests. Before these facts, we wonder: Is there any reason to put limits to our capacity to interfere in life, manipulating it in its beginning or setting its limits? Why don’t we practice euthanasia when the patient’s quality life is considered not to reach the minimum indispensable level of well being, or that the economic burden is unbearable? How many reasonable efforts to preserve it? Why not to end directly with the life of a beloved one in pain?
It is not possible to leave such important decisions regarding when to stop acting or how to the criteria of people’s good feelings. It is here where bioethics is put into practice. Bioethics is a complex and interdisciplinary knowledge that gathers together various sciences in order to take care of human life challenges and the new technologies applied to it, from a moral approach. The starting point of this interdisciplinary knowledge is to specify where does this moral approach comes from, solid grounds for every man, regardless their beliefs, religions, ideological or political structures.
Moral is not the result of a determined socio-historical environment, nor the synthesis of a particular scientific discipline like ethics, for example. Its origin is not religious, though every religion is based on morality principles. Moral starts the moment a man considers himself as a free individual who will have to be responsible of his own actions, something that does not happen to animals and we cannot make them responsible for that. As far as I know there are not jails for killing whales nor re-adaptation centers for predator felines. Animal species are guided by the imperative instinct of the moment, aimed to the satisfaction of vital needs, independently from any moral responsibility. Human freedom, in contrast, allows him to live autonomously, in control of his own actions, giving rise, in this way, to moral life as a primary reality. The moral sense of human life cannot be ignored by an estimate of the scientific or technological benefits that might be discovered.
There are people who think that life is a neutral phenomenon and that morality depends on the religious convictions that each one of us has. The Christians, knowing that they have been created in the image and Likeness of God, discovers in it a high dignity, which does not mean that the non believer who lacks that essential information despises his dignity. Philosopher Rodrigo Guerra responds (Bioethics: an existential and scientific commitment , Murcia 2005, p. p. 71-121) saying that: every human being – believer or not – has a fundamental intuition on human dignity, that means, on the particular value that each individual has. Dignity constitutes a sublime modality of the good, of the valuable, of the positive…, everything that has a higher category. This dignity is inherent to man when he recognizes himself as someone, not only as something, the dignity of being a person, that is to say, a rational, thinking and free subject responsible for his acts, tangible reality, not a mere virtual phenomenon. The recognition of his existence and his dignity, regardless his religion or ideological tendency discovers man as a whole, as a whole universe, as an aim in himself, as someone who deserves respect, as a main character of a unique, singular, unrepeatable and irreplaceable history, someone who did not give himself life but received it as a gift.
It is unavoidable to refer to dignity when speaking of fundamental questions of bioethics. Why is it morally questionable to do everything science and technology allows? What defines the good and convenient for man and what would be the criteria to disapprove certain actions?
Dignity fixes the absolute value of the human being. Nobody would accept a kidnapper’s conduct that tortures and mutilates his victim and then tries to justify himself because such acts were convenient for his own interests or personal preferences. The indignation that such conduct provokes is objective and undeniable. And when the authority captures the criminal, the dignity of this man, as detestable as it might seem, imposes an absolute limit that power instances must respect when they punish him.
The recognition of human dignity as something evident constitutes the grounds of Universal Human Rights, and the individual dignity as indicated by its name – Latin translation of value in Greek- refers to a highly estimated reality, a reality that has several dimensions regarding the body, the language, affective state, feelings, unique reality that cannot be underestimated when due to age or illness it becomes diminished in its functions. I remember an interview with Mother Teresa of Calcutta in which she was saying that she was devoted to help people die with dignity, trying to make the terminal sick person, the abandoned, the pauper, to have a good death. Thousands and thousands of dying people died with dignity held with love in her arms. All of them, discovered themselves as valuable people at the time of their death, when they died they felt recognized in their dignity, respected and loved. Those whose life is diminished or weakened, have the right to receive a special respect…, they have to be taken care of, so that they can have a life as normal as possible (CIC 276).
When recognizing through bioethics that human life has an absolute, non-negotiable value, the acceptance of laws such as direct euthanasia, whatever the reasons are, and whatever the means used, aimed to end with the life of diminished, sick or dying people, is morally unacceptable (CIC 2277). This would lead to a serious social damage; it would mean going backwards instead of forwards.
*Writer and Chairwoman of ENLACE.
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